“None of us,” wrote Christopher Wright, ” needs to be scratched very deep to uncover the darker depths of our worst desires and the evil action any of us is capable of, if pushed.” Moreover, while we are not the overt cause of others’ suffering we cannot escape it’s consequences. 1

It’s not always easy to understand and explain why we do what we do, and sometimes we have no idea what the results of our decisions will be.

Life Is Complicated

According to a Rutgers University report, “Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, which enabled huge labor savings in separating seeds from cotton bolls, made US cotton economically viable and fed English mills. As a consequence, slavery, which had been in decline in the US, exploded, with a growth in the number of slave states from 6 to 15 and 800,000 slaves in the North being shipped south to harvest the cotton.” 2

Eli Whitney had no idea of the impact his invention would have on the slave trade.

Wright continues, “We may not be directly to blame for the sufferings of others, but we cannot ignore the connections.” 3

Connections

Far too many Florida pet owners who purchased a beautiful $20 Burmese python had any idea what would result.

One of the world’s largest snakes, the Burmese pythons can grow to be 18 feet long and weigh over 200 pounds. Though Burmese pythons are native to Southeast Asia, pet owners in Florida either released their pythons or the pythons escaped from their enclosures. The Florida climate, and the Florida Everglades in particular are at risk. They are voracious eaters and are eating up important species native to Florida.

Better enclosures – hurricane-proof enclosures – probably would have helped, but more likely, pet owners ignorant of the big snake + big responsibilities equation have now unleashed an environmental catastrophe.